Palace of Parliament (Palatul Poporului) Bucharest

Today (Saturday, 16th) we are headed to Romania. I am taking the plane at around 5pm with Ana and the kids. Im really looking forward to this trip with the family. It will give me a chance to see where they (and me, if I go with them) might live next year.
Last week was a very busy week getting ready for the trip. I wanted to make sure I was …

Bucharest was actually not a bad city, but also not a great one. I thought it would be in a lot worse condition than it was because Romania is the poorest country in the European Union. In my last blog, I said that Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and it is, but in the actual European Union, Romania is the poorest. I was staying in a very …

Today we woke up in Prague and hit the road at 8am for Budapest, Hungary. We stopped for lunch in Bratslava, Slovakia. We arrived in Budapest at 5pm. Tonight we went on a tour "Illumination Drive of Budapest", it is a beautiful city at night. A little rainy so our pictures were kept to a minimum. The city is divided into two parts by the river …

Romania is not a place that many people go and when we first arrived it wasn't hard to see why. Its cold, grey and a little depressing but I was definitely surprised by what it had going on once you get in and look around.

We arrive the night of the 7th, into Romania after flying from Istanbul. We caught the bus into the city and started …

When I was in my mid 20's I had the chance to spend nine months in this amazing place of the Earth, the Biosphere's reserve, Danube Delta, in Tulcea. The beautiful Tulcea with ancient hills which were once the oldest mountains of Europe, where the Danube melds with the Black Sea and all the creatures with wings and fins, fish and birds altogether …

Budapest is an amazing city. I first had the pleasure to experience Budapest in 1997, visiting a friend who moved to Budapest immediately after college. I always admired my friend's choice to pursue the "adventuresome" route and explore Eastern Europe. Upon my visit, I admired his choice even more of Budapest.

My first trip here, I …

... and people. The atmosphere helped to make up for lack of attractions. There was a very big attraction though: The Palace of Parliament, the second biggest building in the world (next to the pentagon)! Unknowingly we were viewing its smallest elevation ...

... A 3.2km boulevard, resembling more a car park with the dense traffic. The western point of the boulevard is the Palace of Parliament. The second largest building in the world, after the Pentagon. The boulevard is lined with some pretty cool fountains ...

... taking us to the local pub.       By far the the most interesting site was the Palace of Parliament.  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, "The Palace is the world's largest civilian administrative ...

... that I was going to be here but now I can take it at a leisurely pace over 3 days. My first stop is the palace of parliament which caucescu started building in the 80's before they knocked him off. Its the second largest building in the world, the ...

... deep breathe, I headed into the mean streets of Bucharest. If there is only one thing I want to see in Bucharest, it is Palace of Parliament (Casa Poporului, or House of the People). It is the second largest building in the world, only after ...

... was Sinai Monastery, named after Mt Sinai. I stayed one night in Bucharest (population 2M), the capital city of Romania. I went to the Palace of Parliament, or the House of the People until 1989. It is said that this is the second largest building ...

... turn into ballrooms so large they feel like natural spaces, all of which now suffer slightly from disuse. The Palace of Parliament impresses on a bizarre level with its 150 million tonnes of marble. Our dinner in Bucharest was quite notable. We ...

... 30 or so of our closest friends we made our way over to the Palace to catch the noon tour. Now officially dubbed the Palace of Parliament, the place is, simply put, an elephant. The palace is 365,000 square meters in area, which makes it the second ...

... can. Today is another lazy day in Bucharest, but later on Jemima, C2, Joan, and I might head out to the Palace of Parliament, and then have a look for Ceaucescu's grave (he was the Communist leader here who was killed by firing squad back in ...

... walking in what we thought was the direction of our hotel. A good 20 minutes later we found ourselves in front of the Palace of Parliament*, the second largest building the world, which meant we had taken a seriously wrong turn somewhere along the way. ...